Biodiversity and ecosystems
Species loss and soil degradation pull the ground out from under agriculture, the water cycle and climate protection all at once. The damage is quiet, dispersed and barely reversible.
What it is
Intact soils, peatlands and waters are infrastructure, even though they appear on no balance sheet.
Why now
Extinct stays extinct; restoration takes decades, destruction a single season.
Levers
Rewetting peatlands, reforming farm subsidies, protecting land rather than consuming it, supply-chain rules against imported deforestation.